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For some time now, I have been closely watching the changes in trend in terms of child behavior modification techniques. Society has grown so much in compassion in terms of handling children as it attempts to make the old adage “Spare the rod, spoil the child” defunct. More laws are being written to protect the rights of children; and to place accountability on adults (parents and teachers alike) in making sure that these rights are safeguarded. With this, it is a necessity for us to keep ourselves up-to-date with concepts concerning how we handle kids.

Over the past couple of years, it has been a pursuit on my part (as a pediatric speech pathologist) to explore “other options” in behavior modification that would be less stressful for both the child and myself. Also, I found that there is an increasing need to focus on studying concepts that tell me HOW to address negative behaviors not only in the here and now but to redirect and develop consistent positive behaviors among my clients even in my absence. I was delighted to have come across the following free online courses on Coursera to help me with this pursuit:

Going through the initial 2 weeks of the first program, I picked up some points that I would like to share with my colleagues, university students and clients alike:

Understanding “Positive Psychology”
As parents and professionals concerned with “child-rearing”, we are called to be more concerned about growth rather than performance. Positive psychology is an active choice on our part to relieve children of a particular kind of suffering that would prevent them from learning how to make active choices of their own. The concept of “suffering” is herein defined as anything that would rob them of their capability of viewing the future with hope and developing strength of character. Hope for the future is the true definition of “optimism”. Children need to be trained how to view problems and challenges in such a way that they become increasingly capable of independently responding to them — knowing full well that “Yes, something could be done.”

Facilitating Self-ControlIt is generally believed the that facilitation of strength of character begins with encouraging self-control. Dr. Walter Mischel, the psychologist who spear-headed the “marshmallow experiment” (yes, he is a guest speaker in one of the video lectures) explains the importance of being aware of our brain’s “hot system” and “cold system”. The hot system (limbic system) is concerned in dealing with the here and now. It focuses on responding to what is immediate for the purpose of protecting the individual. The cold system (pre-frontal cortex), on the other hand, is concerned with controlled attention, inhibition and problem solving (also known in education and therapy as the “executive functions”). In order to successfully respond to problems and challenges, it is important to teach children how to “cool the immediate” — meaning, we teach them to make direct responses towards the cold system rather than the hot one. This means that we train the children to curb responding to temptations that deter them from achieving a goal that is significant to future feelings of accomplishment and success. Among the practical suggestions on how to do this are:

Help the child identify the goal and make this goal compelling enough for the child to understand the reasons whyit is good for him. The goal needs to be connected at some point to what the child is interested in or what makes him feel most accomplished or “happy”. For a goal to be a “burning goal”, it has to make sense to the child. We have to have more consideration over what the child wants for himself and not what we want for him. If the child is currently incapable of deciding the best courses of action, then we coach him on how to do so. We are to remember that the ultimate goal is for the child to develop as an individual who is capable of making good choices through sound judgment.

Help the child identify his “hot spots” and differentiate these from “better choices”. Have the child develop a clear understanding about the relationship between choice and consequence. Create an “if-then implementation plan” that seeks to train the child into actively choosing to curb tendencies to respond to temptation. Here, it would be better to ask the child, “What do you think you should do?” and then provide the child with appropriate critique on the LOGICAL consequences of such choice. By logical consequences, we mean clearly outlining the risks of how the chain of events look like towards achievement or non-achievement of the goal. Work on teaching the child to modify his options accordingly and increasing awareness on the consequences of each type of choice.

Decrease toxic stress. To understand more about toxic stress, read this article: Helping Caregivers Shield Children from Toxic Stress. Related to what the article pertains to as “strong negative events”, Daniel Kahneman explains the significance of “micromoments” which states that “Our memories of experiences depend on tiny moments that are a few seconds long and are thereafter categorized as good, bad or neutral.” These tiny moments become a junction where one decides whether an experience will be holistically liked or disliked. One example cited in one video lecture is listening to a piece of good music. As one listens to the beautiful harmonies on the initial part of the piece, the brain decides that the experience is good; but as one goes on to the middle that carries one or two dissonant chords, the brain shifts gears and decides that it is not as good as it would have liked since it cannot separate the entirety of the piece with that tiny segment that carries the dissonant chord. That particular “tiny moment” has destroyed the entirety of the experience because the brain experiences difficulty separating the small noxious event from it. With this in mind, it is thus important for a child to accumulate more positive experiences than negative ones. This is not to say that the child will be averted from challenges. Should he be subjected to it, we need to be prepared to process him into successfully finding ways to overcome it. Doing so would empower the child to turn what is potentially negative into something that is positive.

Avoid over-controlling things. A positive experience is something that should make the child feel empowered to do the things he needs (as well as wants) to do. There should be a particular freedom given to children to actively decide to take the correct path — whether or not it is ourpreferred path for them. We are there to only to provide both constructive and critical feedback and not to force or push them into what we think is best for them. As parents and therapists / teachers, we need to be flexible enough to see things at the child’s perspective. As has been mentioned in the earlier part of this article, we have to be concerned more about their growth as individuals and not just the outcomes of their tasks.

The Growth MindsetCarol Dweck, a professor of psychology in Stanford University, conducted a study that sought to differentiate the outlook of middle school children who believe in fixed intelligence versus malleable intelligence. Fixed intelligence pertains to the belief that one has a very specific set of skills and talents that define an individual as a person. Malleable intelligence pertains to the belief that skills and talents can be acquired and honed through treating pertinent challenges as things that “CAN be solved”. Her research found that those who believed in fixed intelligence are more worried about “looking smart” rather than learning the ropes. They are the kids who, when faced with difficult challenges, stop trying altogether. Those, however, who believed in malleable intelligence are the ones who learned how to regroup, restrategize and try again.

With this in mind, we are more apt to teach kids to focus on the process of learning rather than just looking at the outcome. We need to reallocate their efforts towards valuing the learning experience — successes, failures and regaining momentum. Some practical suggestions are as follows:

Demonstrate the concept of “trying again”. The best way for us to teach is the model that we, ourselves, know how to acknowledge our mistakes as opportunities to learn rather than something that spells out who we are as a person. (After all, we are not the sum total of our mistakes!) As such, we subsequently model that with every mistake, there is ALWAYS a lot of room to try again. As teachers / therapists, we are then asked NOT to water down a difficult task but to take the child through it — carefully teaching him to identify options, select the best ones and trying them out. This is how we encourage problem solving.

Give “wise feedback”. Before giving critical feedback, it is best for us to explain to the child WHY and HOW the critical feedback would help him achieve his goal. We then proceed to phrasing the critical feedback in such a way that it would spur motivation rather than make the child feel bad about himself. This is usually done through using specific words that label observable behaviors rather than channeling words that label character flaws. For instance, instead of saying, “I think you are being selfish,” say, “I think we forgot to share our candies today.” Then, we help the child reconstruct their “if-then” map so they could review the consequences of their choices; and, ultimately, to arrive at a “better choice”.

Be careful about the use of positive labels especially when their negative counterparts can potentially dampen the child’s motivation when they fail to comply with an expected pattern of behavior. For example, the opposite of “You must be proud of yourself” is “You must be ashamed of yourself”. If a child does good work and you comment, “You must be proud of yourself,” it automatically connotes that the child should be ashamed of himself if he does the opposite. Instead, it is safer to say “You should feel good about this” or “you did great in finding solutions to that one” — or simply, “You DID great!” Note that, here, we focus on the action of exerting effort rather than putting more importance on how a character attribute is labeled. It is also important to note that using the word “best” in putting forth feedback could be potentially limiting for the child as we do not actually know what his “best” work is.

Help the kids find repeatable behaviors that they could use in future situations. When setting goals, we have to keep in mind which behaviors the child could actually utilize in addressing as many future challenges as possible. One such repeatable behavior is the ability of the child to identify all resources and tools that are available for him to solve problems; and how to craft new tools when desired ones are unavailable. If we keep on providing environments where we ask the child to complete a project with readily available tools, then he learns only to simply comply with a goal rather than make active choices on how to achieve that goal.

Active Constructive Feedback
When providing feedback, we need to be actively aware of (a) the words we say; (b) the tone of voice that we use; and (c) our body language. Feedback is said to be classified as either constructive or destructive; and passive or active.

Passive constructive feedback is saying “That’s good.” Active constructive feedback is saying “That is a good way of solving that problem.”

Passive destructive feedback is saying “Ok, let’s move on.” Active destructive feedback is saying “What do you think you’re doing? That is such a dumb idea!”

Focusing on the growth mindset, we are more apt to use active constructive feedback as this spurs the children to perform their work better.

In closing, positive psychology is all about “seeing kids not as problems but as puzzles”. We have the responsibility (and I would also believe the “privilege”) to get to discover who they are as individuals in terms of their unique capabilities. Not because they see things or solve problems differently than we do means that they are making the wrong choice. Explore first if their manner of solving things ultimately allows them to achieve their goals. Our role is only to facilitate their own self-discovery and not to turn them into replicas of ourselves.

Teach — not because you want to see yourself in others but because you want others to learn how to value who they are!

Spot the difference exercises are tasks that allow for improving your child’s perceptual skills. They are exercises that prepare them for reasoning skills, specifically problem identification. When we attempt to identify problems, we draw up an “ideal” mental image and then see how an actual input from the environment compares with it. This process of comparison would then allow the child to determine errors in the actual input and mark them for “solving” later on.

We randomly came across a post on Reality Pod over at Facebook which illustrates how important body language is in practical living. For those who are about to have job interviews, this would be quite helpful. Here are some important points to pick up about body language on job interviews:

Make appropriate eye contact. This does not mean you stare. It simply means that you look at the face of your interviewer especially when trying to make a point about yourself or when answering important questions. Appropriate eye gaze shows interest and attentiveness, but do not look too intently. Looking very intently at someone makes them feel suspicious of your motives.

Sit up straight. Bad posture results in (a) poor breathing patterns; and (b) subluxations that affect the overall integrity of the spinal column, nerves and blood vessels. And we know that any affectation with the overall integrity of the body also affects our capacity to think and to give good answers.

Assume an open body position. Smile. Do not cross your arms over your chest. Crossing your arms over your chest and the lack of a smile are “closed” body positions that convey you are having reservations about the job or that you could not care less about it. A closed body position is a protective stance that tells people that they are not welcome; and shutting out your interviewer from your “personal circle” is something you wouldn’t want to do.

Regulate the information you send off. Too many extra movements (i.e., hand gestures and fidgeting) and extra colors (i.e., wearing extremely colorful clothes or whose colors that are too bright) interfere with the message you want to put across. Remember that it is much more difficult to process and understand information (sights, sounds and movements) when they are too “busy” or there is too much of them coming in all at once. Your interviewer will feel that there is so much to sort through and would become annoyed for having to work through that much information. Present yourself with just the right clothing and movement so as to alert or to catch attention, but once you have your interviewer’s attention, make sure that you HELP him focus on the “auditory signals” you are giving out — and that is your spoken message.

The handshake matters. It must be good and firm. Handshakes are moments of touch that you share with any person you are doing business with. In terms of proxemics, these are brief moments where you allow another person into your personal zone in order to “seal the deal”. A weak handshake conveys tentative feelings about having a person exist within your personal circle; and a firm one conveys a more solid presence and a firm stance about whatever business has transpired. Whether or not you like to push through with any transaction, a firm handshake will tell the other person that you are active, present and aware of the important points that you have talked about.

As social beings, the way we carry ourselves is not simply to satisfy an aesthetic purpose. Presenting ourselves well in front of another person does not equate with satisfying surface-level needs. When we communicate, we COMMUNE — we share and make a connection — and to do this effectively is to deliver the entire package using the totality of our body’s capacities to convey that which we want others to understand about us.

Although the article discusses more about adult interactions, there are points worthy of note when it comes to increasing awareness of meanings of specific movements and postures of the body. Check it out by clicking the image below and, don’t forget… Have a fun-filled week!

Last April 26, 2012, we launched a new program called “Language of Movement”. It is a 10-session short course that aims to enhance social communication skills in children through opening their awareness and understanding of the “hidden messages” of posture, gesture, bodily distance (proxemics) and facial expressions.

Program Highlights
The program…

…is open to children ages 7 to 12 years of age.

…heightens children’s awareness of different postures and positions of the body in oneself and in others.

…enhances the children’s skills in “reading” and understanding the meanings of posture, body language and distance as social cues.

…provides children with group activities that allow them to learn how to use body language that is synchronous with verbal language.

Coverage
The program covers units that tackle…

…Personal Space and Proxemics

…Posture and Communication

…Communicating with the Upper and Lower Body Regions

…Communicating with the Head and Face

The Pilot Class of the program is now being held at the Las Pinas area by Teacher Jean and Teacher Wowie every Monday and Thursday morning. The Pilot Class will end on May 28, 2012. Future runs of the short course will be scheduled based on the mutual availability of participants and facilitators. Venues may likewise be arranged depending on the number of participants per group formed in a specified area. You may post inquiries through our website: theragroups.tripod.com or through e-mailing us at thera_groups@yahoo.com.

Everything in moderation. While we are living in a fast-paced, computer-dependent world, we need to constantly have to remind ourselves that our bodies are made for movement. Sitting for hours in front of a computer or a video game can cause us to be at-risk for fatal health problems such as pulmonary embolism.

As parents, caregivers and teachers, let us constantly remind our kids not to sit for several hours in front of their computers and consoles. As the article above stated:

…medical experts fear youngsters who spend hours glued to their consoles might also be at risk and have urged them to take regular breaks.

Some tips:

Set a time limit for computer use and playing video games. When you impose a time limit, it would be wise for you to have an alternative activity ready. Some children cannot be just told to “do something else”. They might need our help in finding other activities that would alleviate potential boredom. Be ready with at least two to three alternative activities that your child could do for the day apart from playing video games.

A good alternative activity would be to set “play dates” (for very young kids) or to enroll your child to a sports clinic or an arts, crafts, or music class. Be sure to make them choose which ones they prefer. Out children’s activities should always encourage them to explore their interests.

Encourage physical activity. Take them to a playground, jog with them or play a sport with them. The value of movement and exercise is best taught by example.

Encourage the value of building relationships with other people (especially peers) over and above tasks, activities and other accomplishments. When children learn the importance of relating with other people, they will find more satisfaction in personal interactions than in virtual ones.

Here are some services that provide alternative activities for children:

This site was especially created for us to be able to update you regarding our children’s activities in their respective classes. Kindly check back often so that you could constantly be “in the know” about themes, tasks, management approaches and strategies that we currently employ to address their varying needs. Please feel free to drop a comment under the posts, especially if you have new information you would like to share with everyone.

If you need to air out a concern specific to one child, kindly send us a private message instead through thera_groups@yahoo.com and we will try to get back to you as soon as we can.

Thank you very much for your cooperation and the support you give our class handlers! Here’s to many fruitful years ahead!